


Interlude: Dino's Resolve

by ProcioneRenaissanceArcana (wanderlustnostalgia)



Category: Katekyou Hitman Reborn!
Genre: Ficlet, Gen, Implied/Referenced Suicide, Mental Health Issues, Possibly OOC, References to Depression, dino is a good big brother, reborn isn't a total asshole, romario is dino's emotional support mafioso, someone get them therapy, the vongola is a mess, they're just kids!!
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-10
Updated: 2020-09-10
Packaged: 2021-03-06 19:07:47
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,107
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26383891
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wanderlustnostalgia/pseuds/ProcioneRenaissanceArcana
Summary: In which Dino decides enough is enough.
Relationships: Dino & Hibari Kyouya, Dino & Reborn (Katekyou Hitman Reborn!), Dino & Romario (Katekyou Hitman Reborn!), Dino & Sawada Tsunayoshi, Dino & Yamamoto Takeshi
Comments: 2
Kudos: 30





	Interlude: Dino's Resolve

**Author's Note:**

> Reborn: the ultimate problematic fave.
> 
> Not sure when exactly this takes place in canon but probably sometime after the TYL arc. Reading this over again I don't think Dino has quite the temper in canon but also knowing how much he cares for Tsuna I think it's reasonable that he'd be the one to actually call out just how fucked-up things are in the Vongola. Someone's gotta do it.

“So when exactly was I supposed to find out that Tsuna saved his Rain Guardian from falling off the roof of their middle school,” Dino demands, “and that the reason he was up there in the first place was because he broke his arm playing baseball?”

Reborn sips his tea. He’s perched in Dino’s overlarge armchair, one short leg crossed over the other. “It didn’t concern you,” he says. “The well-being of the Vongola is Tsuna’s responsibility, not yours.”

“But they’re just kids!” Dino protests. “They were, what, twelve when you recruited them? Thirteen? How bad do things have to be for you to end your life over a sports injury at _thirteen?_ There’s something else going on, Reborn.” _You know damn well what’s going on,_ Dino doesn’t say, because he doesn’t want to think about it. Doesn’t want to think about where he was when Reborn came to him all those years ago, how much the image of Takeshi Yamamoto on the Namimori roof reminds him of himself, thirteen and timid and convinced of his own uselessness. How long ago it was, and yet it never seems like enough.

“I have my eye on Yamamoto,” Reborn says. “As does Tsuna.”

“But are you checking in on him regularly? Do you know what’s going through his head—do you know for a _fact_ that he’s okay?”

“He hasn’t had an episode since Tsuna found him.”

“That you know of.” Dino shakes his head. “You and I both know it’s not that simple, Reborn.”

Reborn says nothing. Meanwhile, Romario lingers by the door, in the corner of Dino’s eye, never leaving his peripheral vision.

“What about Hayato?” Dino continues. “Can’t even look his sister in the eye without passing out. He and Sasagawa have no sense of self-preservation, and it’s all in the name of some cause they value more than themselves. How is that right? Don’t even get me started on the kids from Kokuyo. I mean, for fuck’s sake, the Bovinos sent a _five-year-old_ all the way to Japan to take you out—and now he’s a _Guardian._ And Kyouya…”

Dino thinks of his own pupil, curled up in the windowsill of his Namimori office, overlooking his beloved city in solitude. Layers and layers of steel, not an ounce of vulnerability to be detected. Dino knows better. He’s pretty sure he’s the only person these days who doesn’t think Hibari’s invincible.

His mind drifts to Fuuta, to I-Pin, to Bianchi, to everything they’ve seen and endured before hitting twenty. He wants to vomit.

“It isn’t right, Reborn. They’re just kids.” To anchor himself, Dino trains his gaze on Romario. The anxiety clawing at his throat starts to subside. “It’s bad enough Tsuna has to deal with growing up, let alone finding out he’s a mafia boss and going through hell and back, but looking after his friends? He can’t do that by himself.” No one can, he silently adds. Trauma isn’t something you can fix with a shot to the head and five minutes.

“They need help. Actual help. It’s one thing for them to be mafia, but the culture on top of that…” Dino pinches the bridge of his nose. “They’re not going to ask for it. They’re not going to know they need it until it’s too late, and what then?”

Leon licks his eye, and Reborn frowns thoughtfully behind his mug of tea.

Dino perches himself on the edge of his desk and takes a deep breath. It’s the most honest he’s been in a long time, both with Reborn and with himself. “Sorry,” he says. “I…wow.” For an instant he feels like teenage Dino again, the moment he found his voice, realized the power he could wield as a boss.

“You care for Family,” Reborn says. “Respect, compassion, love…those are things no tutor can teach. It’s what’s gotten you this far.” He smiles behind his mug. “It’s why the Ninth picked Tsuna.”

Dino can’t really argue with that, although he’d be lying if he said he didn’t have some serious questions for Iemitsu Sawada, most of them regarding his parenting techniques. Being CEDEF, though, Sawada’s input outweighs anything Dino could possibly have to say, so he keeps his mouth shut for the sake of not overstepping his boundaries. One of these days, though, he’ll say something. If not with his mouth, then—well.

“About Yamamoto,” Reborn continues. “I know more than you think. He carries a lot of weight for someone so young.”

Surely he notices the tension in Dino’s shoulders, in his jaw. The irony, if you could call it that, isn’t lost on him.

“But,” Reborn says, “as tutors it’s our job to speak to them in the language they know best. If you brought up your concerns with Hibari, would he listen?”

Dino tries to imagine the encounter, which in his mind inevitably ends in him getting a tonfa to the face for his troubles, and snorts.

“Exactly.” Reborn sets his seemingly-bottomless cup down on the table next to him and folds his hands, looking for all the world like the Godfather of his own pint-size rainbow mafia. “My job is not to reason with him, or confront him with his problems. My job is to guide him to solutions and give him the tools to find his own way out.”

“I understand.” Dino sighs. “But we could be doing so much more, Reborn. If not as tutors, then as…well, as family, I guess.”

Reborn eyes him curiously. “What are you proposing?”

“Well, doctors that aren’t Shamal, for starters.” Dino makes no effort to disguise the contempt in his voice. “We could start looking for therapists, but they’d have to be sworn into secrecy…” His eyes catch Romario’s again. “Or we could start training people inside. See who has the aptitude for it. Certain flames combined with empathy levels…”

“You’re asking a lot, Dino,” Reborn says. “This is not how we do things in the mafia. Changes like these can’t be willed into existence.”

“I know.” Dino closes his eyes and feels it, his flame, pulsing low and strong deep in the recesses of his heart. He knows without seeing that Reborn’s fingers are twitching, ready to fire his pistol at a moment’s notice. Not quite Vongola intuition, but close enough. “I’m prepared to put in the work. For Tsuna’s family and for my own.”

“Good.” Dino opens his eyes and sees that Reborn’s fingers have settled back into his lap. Both he and Leon are smiling up at him. “You’ve learned well, Dino.”

“Yeah, well…” Dino pauses, reflecting. “I guess I learned from the best.”


End file.
